


Bloom

by SilverCardinal



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Diverges at episode 77, Getting Together, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:45:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverCardinal/pseuds/SilverCardinal
Summary: For as long as Takeru can remember, he has always hoped to meet his soulmate. Create and share a spectacular life with them just as he saw his parents do.Kengo always thought that finding your soulmate would be an unnecessary burden that he would never saddle himself with.The Fates don't make it easy for them.For Vrains Rare Pair Weeks - Day 10 - Soulmate AU





	Bloom

When Takeru was a child he thought his parents were soulmates. In every angle of the word, his parents would just perfectly fit together even when they argued and had disagreements, their marks quivered slightly at most but stayed the same at the end of the day. His mother’s pink peonies stretched from her collarbone and whorl down to her elbow with shimmers of icy silver woven between the petals and his father’s faint gray clouds and mist that cover his upper back that perfectly curl with the warm bed of coral wisps. Takeru is a child but it is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

His mother would tell him about how their marks manifested into their final, true iteration in the midst of the busy streets of the city. His father had stumbled over his own feet and it was his mother who he knocked and that was all it took for their marks to change. Something so small pushed their marks to bloom into the intricate and unique pieces of art they became. It wasn’t unheard of for soulmates to have their marks change over the initial meeting, if anything, it was just as common as soulmates who have known each other for years yet their marks only changed after certain circumstances.

Takeru remembers fondly looking at his right hand; at the center of his palm is a small golden mark. His soulmark. The colour reminds Takeru of sunflower petals and the shape itself resembles seed; the base is wide and a bit like a rectangle that narrows to a tip at the other end. He lies in his bed, staring at his mark, imagining all of the things it could turn into when he meets his soulmate. Perhaps it will bloom into a bouquet of peonies or other flowers like his mother and make his soulmate smile when they see what a beautiful mark is embellished onto Takeru’s skin just how his father does when he sees his mother after he returns from work.

He is four, a child, and he dreams of the ideal world that would house the perfect meeting of him and his soulmate.

* * *

Kengo knows his parents are soulmates. In doing so, he quickly learns that your soulmate does not guarantee you a happily ever after. He barely remembers what his father even looked like, much less his soulmark but his mother’s will forever be burned into his memory.

It used to be a bouquet of white heathers around her wrist, she would stroke them so gently and with such affection, Kengo believed that his father would return one day. He had to. Mother loved him so much. They were soulmates after all; bound whatever science, gods or fates that dictated their marks to show them the person that would be their perfect other half. That’s what all the stories said.

His mother’s white heathers began to wilt on his second birthday after his father had left them. The colours turn from vibrant whites and greens to sickly grays and yellows. It is a slow shift, like her flowers were fighting to maintain its form. It takes almost five years before his mother’s soulmark had settled into its new shape and it breaks Kengo’s heart thinking back on it, knowing that his mother had hoped for her soulmate to return for all of those years.

Kengo discovered for himself that the soulmarks weren’t always a good thing after seven years since he last saw his father and the white flowers that once was the mark of adoration that his mother treasured so much, transformed into a black mark of heartache.

* * *

When Takeru is six he is kidnapped, thrown into a barren room with a VR set and his deck. He is six. His deck isn’t anything to write home about, he put it together with the other neighbourhood children and chose for a fire motif because his favourite character in Masked Rider was the red rider. He loses against the AI more than he wins. The electricity that shoots out makes his skin burn and rattles up and down his bones with such tenacity that it leaves him shaking on the cold floor for minutes after each loss.

He tries rebelling, refuses to pick up the VR and duel gear. He thinks perhaps if he doesn’t do what they want, they will get frustrated and let him go. He just wants to go home. He wants to see his parents, his grandparents and his friends. He screams at the walls that he promises he won’t tell anyone, he’ll say that he just got lost and he can’t remember anything but the walls only reply in silence.

Takeru just stares at the white walls, he refuses to look at the VR set or the empty tray, ignores his stomach screaming in its emptiness. He balls his right hand and clutches it to his chest, he has heard stories of soulmates that could sense when the other was in danger. He squeezes his hand, hoping that maybe his soulmate would sense his distress, somehow find him, save him.

He’s able to hold out for thirty-six hours before hunger and desperation seizes his body, Takeru scrambles to put the VR set on and the duel commences.

One loss.

Two losses.

One win, two losses.

Two wins, three losses.

His head is clouded by the hunger that Takeru loses count of the ratio but he supposes he did rather poorly (again). The results are usually like this, especially when his opponent uses _that_ monster against him and even out of the duel, it haunts his dreams. To top it all off, the tray comes to his room with only a small bowl of rice and a box of milk.

He bites down on his lower lip to suppress the whimper in his throat and picks up the meager amounts of food he had been given.

Cradling his right hand in his lap, Takeru hopes that if his soulmate can sense what he is feeling, that they know that they are one of the reasons why he has yet to give up.

* * *

Kengo does his best to ignore his soulmark. It’s on the center of his chest, a small green shape that vaguely resembles a triangle but that is as far as he goes with inpecting its details. He avoids looking at the mirror when he takes off his clothes to shower, refuses to look downwards at his own body when he is getting changed in fear of looking at it and seeing that his soulmark has changed.

It hasn’t, thank goodness. He isn’t sure what he would do with himself if it did. Best case scenario, his soulmate would recognize how idiotic it would be to flip their status from strangers to lovers and jump through hoops and hurdles to have each other intertwined into each other's lives, just because of a magical shape-shifting birthmark demanded it and they would resume their lives as it were. At the worst, his soulmate would be a sentimental fool and chase Kengo throughout Den City, pester him into giving them a chance, babble on about how they are predestined and blah blah blah. If his soulmate is truly a nuisance, he would probably have to tell them about his parents and how much of a train wreck they were despite being “predestined by the fates”, hopefully that would be more than enough to get them off of his case.

He’s been a bounty hunter for almost six years now, his prosthetic still feels odd and wrong on his body and the clinking of metal as he moves causes tension in his shoulders to build until he’s finished his work and taking the godforsaken thing off of his body.

It’s a rather unremarkable day in Kengo’s opinion, he had confronted Soulburner at the demand of his hire and lost. His tongue coils in a bitter taste, but he just needs to improve. Get stronger, then he can take down any of the Ignis holders and destroy the despicable AI’s they were protecting.

He closes his eyes and sighs. Whatever. Zaizen never got mad the previous times his joke of a bounty hunter team failed. This won’t be any different and Kengo honestly can’t be that frustrated given that he’s still getting paid.

The care robot assigned to his mother is at his door, alerting him that his mother had woken up and asked for him. He closes his desktop and meets his mother who greets him with a warm smile as she wheels herself next to Kengo to make their way to the living room.

It still hurts Kengo seeing his mother confined to a wheelchair. He knows she can live an absolutely full life still; she’s strong and resilient, she would never let such a thing hold her down. Nothing can. Yet, it pangs his heart knowing that it has just been made so much harder for her because he trusted a damn AI.

He sheds his sweater only leaving a thin white shirt as he goes to the kitchen to brew some tea and his mother settles herself in front of the TV to watch the news.

“Kengo, your mark,” his mother gives him an odd look pointing at his chest where his soulmark was.

He looks down instinctively, expecting to see faint green through his shirt but he doesn’t. There’s a different colour entirely. He raises his shirt just high enough to see the skin, his mother’s alarm was warranted.

His mark had changed. Not into its final iteration, it’s some kind of in between. Kengo feels it and just knows.

He made contact with his soulmate.

He just had a duel with Soulburner. He knows it was green before the duel, he showered before logging into his account.

“Fuck.”

* * *

Takeru is shaking when he logs out of LINK VRAINS. As strong of a face he had during the duel, there’s still a small part of himself, the scared child that he was, that trembles at the thought of Despair from the Dark having its monstrous claws around him.

“You okay?”

Takeru blinks, “Huh?”

“Are you okay?” Yusaku asks again more slowly, if he was his older self, Takeru would have assumed it to be an insult but he looks at his friend and knows that his concern is genuine.

“Yeah,” his voice comes out shakier than he expects. “Just… Blood Shepard put up a really good duel.”

Both Yusaku and Kusanagi give him a look, it’s obvious they know he was only telling them a half truth but they don’t press him on it.

Either he was so caught up with what bits of data they were able to recover or maybe he just plain didn’t notice it, but his mark had changed. He’s walking back to his apartment, idly opening his phone to check the time and his eyes immediately catch on the lack of gold he was so accustomed to see.

He nearly drops his phone from the shock. The gold is still present but there are wisps of chalky violet emanating from it and Takeru is completely mesmerized. He sprints the rest of the way, glancing over at his palm in between the minutes just to reassure himself that he isn’t just exhausted and crazy.

Locking the door behind him is a secondary concern compared to turning on the lights to properly see the new form of his soulmark and Takeru smiles looking at it in awe before it dawns on him.

The most ruthless bounty hunter in LINK VRAINS is his soulmate.

* * *

“Was it someone from work?”

“Um,” Kengo shifts the weight between his legs. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

His mother hums, “Are you going to see them again?”

“I… I don’t know. Probably.” Kengo feels his skin crawling in anxiety the more his mother pries.

His mother has no idea what he does for living, she’s smiling thinking that his soulmate is an office worker and Kengo can just go up to them and ask to go out for dinner because they weren’t on opposing factions in the midst of whatever underground circus SOL has been trying to keep under wraps.

His mother finishes her meal and collects her dishes to put into the sink, “I hope I get to meet them,” she says with a sweet smile that Kengo can’t return.

* * *

It all falls in place to Takeru’s excited nervousness and Kengo’s dreaded curses.

It’s Ghost Girl that brings them together. Kengo can’t say no to his sister and Takeru agrees to whatever Playmaker wants so they end up working together to thwart Lightning’s plans to eradicate humanity.

They end up meeting in the real world because of it to Kengo’s dismay. And even more so that his mother is there when Takeru is the one to knock on his door with details about their next move.

It’s the first time they’ve met in person. First time they’ve spoken with pleasantries unless they count the borderline disparagement from their first duel (apparently, it didn’t count for the Fates). They’re both aware of each other’s identities, a necessity to ensure they had some semblance of an idea to who they were working with but never acted upon the information until now.

The moment they say hello, their first personal interaction with one another, Kengo sees a flurry of purple and gold trickle and spread across the back of Takeru’s hand and spiral down his wrist. Of course his mother with her impeccable vision, catches the sudden bright orange played on the back of her son’s neck and goes to see who it was to cause the change.

She invites Takeru in for tea and Kengo knows she would nudge him to stay for dinner as well but Takeru politely turns her down which surprises Kengo given he had skimmed over his list of minor misconducts over the last few years. He says he’s just here for work related matters but when he and Kengo are alone in his office, he can’t help but bring it up.

And Kengo can’t blame him. If he’s held Go Onizuka on the pedestal of a hero, even now, no doubt he would be holding onto the ideal of soulmates finding each other as a sign by the Fates of a happily ever after with a white picket fence and two and half pets that they would call their children.

Yet, Kengo can’t find it in himself to turn Takeru down. The kid is talking about after they take out Lightning and SOL he wants to try making _something_ with Kengo. All of these years, he had prepared himself for the moment he would meet his soulmate, prepared to rebuke their childish ideals that he expects them to push onto him but the words can’t find the form on his mouth.

Takeru leaves, but not without brushing his hand over his. Kengo sees how the purple smoke on Takeru’s fingers wrap around his ring finger.

_Like a wedding ring. Of course._

“I’ll see you later. Okay?” Takeru gives him a soft smile, like he can see exactly who Kengo is despite the fact that it’s logically impossible. They are colleagues at best, so why does it feel like his heart is being squeezed when Takeru looks at him with those gentle expressions that beam with sincerity.

“Yeah,” Kengo manages to croak out, feeling a faint heat at the tip of his ears. “See you.” He isn’t sure if it’s joy or fear that rumbles in his chest.

* * *

“So, it did mean something,” his mother muses.

Something. The in between state. He wishes it didn’t but he can’t be mad at his mother for pointing it out.

“Are you going to say anything to him?” she bumps his side gently. “He’s such a sweet boy Kengo,” she continues.

And she’s right. Takeru is pretty much the ideal person any parent would want their kid to look up to. Kind, forgiving, brave…

Everything that Kengo wasn’t.

* * *

Everything about this scares the shit out of Kengo. He fully expected to live his life without his soulmate yet nothing could prepare him for the undeniable pull his feels with Takeru.

Is this why his mother hoped all of those years for his father to return to them? Was this the same feeling his father felt for that markless woman who he ultimately abandoned him for? Does he push Takeru away and live his life free of the emotional restraints that pulled his father away and caused his mother so much grief?

Kengo doesn’t know what to think and his chest aches.

* * *

It isn’t that Takeru thought taking down Lightning and his cohorts would be easy, he just had hoped that it wouldn’t have risked the well-being of so many people. The well-being of innocent people. He hoped that whatever parts of Jin Kusanagi Lightning took from would prevent the Ignis from causing too much harm but it was proven to be wishful thinking.

And to add to his ire, Blood Shepard has definitely doing his due diligence keeping himself at an arm's distance. They need to work together, it is more than obvious that they have a better chance at detouring the war on humanity if they all collaborate rather than jumping into the coliseum one at a time.

This time, it’s him and Blood Shepard against the AI hoard created by Lightning and Windy.

Part of him is wary that the bounty hunter won’t be as vigilant in keeping cover over him as Takeru is, and there are several close calls that leave Takeru’s heart pounding against his rib cage and that is just within dueling. A few of the BITS and BOOTS decide to stray from the beaten path and try to knock him off his board and take Flame by force. Their numbers overwhelm him. He can’t keep track of all of their movements, they’re too quick and they surround him in no time. Takeru hopes that Kusanagi’s program will kick in and force a logout but the sensation of falling, his blood rushing to the tips of his fingers and feeling of utter helplessness makes him forget how to breath.

His vision is a spectacle of red and gray but with a blink, there’s a crackle of fire. And then another. And another.

Blood Shepard soars through the smoke and dives for him, grabbing Takeru’s arm and hoisting him onto his board.

“Look, I’m going to tear through these AI’s whether you’re here or not but it would save me a helluva lot of time if I didn’t need to do it on my own.” There’s a bite to Blood Shepard’s tone but he continues. “So, are you with me?” It’s still nowhere near as gentle or soft as Blue Maiden’s inflection. Hell. It makes Playmaker’s sound sweet but there’s a hint of reassurance in Blood Shepard’s last statement.

He makes a gesture with his fingers and his board materializes. “I’m with you. Let’s take them down,” he says with a confident smile as he leaps onto the board and flies towards the hoard.

Takeru is some odd feet away but he swears he hears a relieved, “Good”, behind him.

* * *

The battle is hard and long but they succeed. Far too many close calls, Soulburner- Takeru- is far too reckless at times for his own good but Kengo knows that it’s the kids pure determination shining through.

As much as it aggravates him, Kengo finds himself following him. Making sure he doesn’t do anything too stupid, and if he does, he has someone to back him up so that Takeru can come back to the real world in one piece.

(He tries to push down the part of himself that bubbles in joy when Takeru steps out the pod and smiles at him.)

* * *

Everyone else had left. People to meet, things to do that all take precedence over the small celebratory dinner of taking down the corrupt SOL Technologies. One by one, Kengo watched them leave. Walked out of the door with a soft smile and a “I’ll see you soon” even though they all know it is untrue. The job is done. The alliance that they formed is no longer needed (no reason to see Takeru, his soulmate, anymore).

Yusaku had left with Kusanagi and it’s just Takeru and him left standing outside of the building.

* * *

“Don’t you have a train to catch? More than an hour ride to get back home,” Kengo asks suddenly and Takeru sees that he isn’t looking at him. It doesn’t take him long to read between the lines.

The insinuation that Takeru would be leaving the city. Leaving behind any opportunity to build anything or nothing with Kengo makes his body go rigid.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Takeru hopes he didn’t say it too loud but he isn’t sure if he succeeded.

“I’m staying in Den City. So…” There’s a pause as Takeru struggles to find the right words. “When… If you want to- I don’t know. Figure this out. Talk. Go out…” He swallows. “I’ll be here.”

Kengo turns to him, inklings of shock and alleviation etched on his face and his brow is raised. “You seem to have an awful amount of faith that I would want to contact you.”

He feels his right hand burning, “I still owe you a rematch. Unless you like our score as it is.”

“Hmph. As if.” Something flutters in Takeru’s chest and another part of him lets out a sigh of relief.

“Then, how about we talk about the details later?” Takeru steps right to Kengo, the space between their bodies only being enough for the air to pass through. He’s looking up at Kengo with a determined expression but the older man can see the genuineness on his features.

There’s a pull in Kengo’s chest, like the embers of a firecracker pushing against his skin, towards Takeru. He sees his hand twitching, like he is also feeling the gravitation between them. Kengo reaches over, his fingertips brushing against Takeru’s middle and ring finger, guiding his hand- his mark, to their other half.

Takeru’s hand is flattened on Kengo’s chest and for a moment, Kengo forgets how to breathe.

“A date then.” Takeru murmurs, his eyes haven’t left Kengo.

The pull is still present, Kengo caresses Takeru’s cheek with his thumb, an idle movement, nothing more than reveling in being able to _touch_. A small smile forms.

“It’s a date.”

* * *

They don’t know what form their relationship may or may not take. But they will never face it alone. In the fog of countless unknowns and variables, they’ll have each other to light the way.

Looking out at the sunrise, Kengo glances at Takeru’s soulmark. Still bright and striking on his skin.

They will be alright.


End file.
